As a member of the queer and trans communities, Thomason says that the current state of the world and the systems that exist within it seem like they’re working overtime to try to take away his softness. As a result, quite a bit of Tenderness is filled up with odes to quiet, beautiful, and scary moments of intimacy – the ultimate exercise in fighting back at a sometimes-unaccepting environment.

Already having established himself as one to watch in the Halifax music community, racking up awards at folk and blues festivals, at a young age, the lead single “True” is a partial response to music executives telling him he would ruin his voice and career if he started taking testosterone, sending Thomason into a panic about only being able to keep one of his identity or his passion for music – a myth that he’s since proven false with his powerful belts worthy of a rock and roll frontman. At the end of the day, though, Thomason doesn’t want to be solely labelled / defined as a “queer artist” despite the deeply personal nature of his music.

“I never really want my gender or sexuality identity markers to lead, but that’s my everyday life, and so that’s what I’m writing about. I didn’t go through everything I went through to hide that,” he says. “When you’re making something, it’s like, you’re so close to it that you don’t see the big picture, and now I step back and say ‘Oh yeah, this is pretty personal!’”

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is that the human experience is so broad, regardless of what labels we identify with,” he continues. “Ideally, the music is breaking through those things and touching people’s humanity. Of course I have a dedication to my own community, but overall, I think my hope with the music is that it breaks down walls and just touches people no matter who they are.”

The film Really Happy Someday, which premiered at TIFF, follows a singer going through similar experiences, but the connections to Thomason run even deeper than you’d expect. The lead actor, Breton Lalama, is a musical theatre actor Thomason knows personally, and who kept in touch with him for advice throughout the filming process and his own testosterone journey. Thomason’s vocal coach, Ali Garrison, appears in the film as a vocal coach. With such deep ties to the project already, Thomason offered to be the film’s music supervisor.

Thomason hopes that his openness about his journey with testosterone as a singer and his willingness to share his personal tales will inspire others to become more curious, adding to the overall sense of tenderness he’s hoping to foster among his audience, continuing to bolster that rebellious spirit to fight back against the current conditions being offered to us.

“My music career has been pushed forward by a sense of curiosity, about not being satisfied with something and wanting to know what it would take to make that happen.”

“I’ve heard people talk about queerness as the ability to imagine a different future, or alternative realities,” he says. “My music career has been pushed forward by a sense of curiosity, about not being satisfied with something and wanting to know what it would take to make that happen.”

Thomason’s cover of a pretty rebellious song – Bruce Cockburn’s “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” originally inspired by the Cold War and HIV/AIDS crisis and applied by Thomason instead to the COVID pandemic – is actually what sent his career to new heights. Appearing on Tenderness despite its 2021 release date, the track got the attention of Six Shooter Records after appearing on CBC’s Q.

Thomason’s appearance on another Canadian broadcasting institution got him in touch with some other Canadian icons: he was the winner of CTV’s talent scouting competition, The Launch, back in 2019. Some of the show’s mentors included Sarah McLachlan and Marie-Mai, two artists he has since kept in contact with, even collaborating with McLachlan musically.

“Their generosity really stuck with me the most. Sarah was a big advocate for me on that show, and I really appreciate that she kind of has gone to bat for me a couple times,” he says. “She doesn’t have to do that. If I was ever lucky enough to be in a similar position, if I was ever able to help a younger artist, I would want to do that. It feels like the torch is being passed through all these great artists, and we have to look out for each other.”

Thomason feeling like an addition to a canon of sorts certainly isn’t unprecedented when you look at the liner notes of his new project. The title track, “Tenderness,” was initially written off-handedly to include some lyrics from Stars’ track “Your Ex-Lover Is Dead,” anticipating that he’d have to change them eventually. Instead, a Twitter DM to Torquil Campbell not only got his approval, but both he and Amy Millan singing backing vocals on the track. “It worked out beyond my wildest dreams,” he says.

While there are quite a few more intimate tracks that dabble more in quieter, pop-folk soundscapes on Tenderness, there’s still room in Thomason’s world of compassion for a little anger – or a little humour, resulting in explosive rock tunes and sugary pop songs in the album’s opening half.

“I think your anger can fuel you, and you can still choose to be tender,” he says. “You don’t have to be hardened by anger and you don’t have to suppress it. You don’t have to sacrifice anger for tenderness; I think they can both exist.”

The latter manifests itself best on the track “Fantasy,” a song complete with cheerleader-style chants where Thomason takes a nuanced look at being fetishized as a trans person – “For better or worse, I’ve been a lot of people’s firsts / I don’t hate it but it’s complicated,” he sings. Thomason loves the track’s placement on the album and its “tongue-in-cheek, fun sass,” because he’s aware that he can take himself a bit too seriously at times.

“I think marginalized people have been doing this forever, finding humour in a bad situation. Being fetishized sucks, and it’s a bad feeling, but I think when you’re able to laugh about it and realize ‘Oh, I’m actually very desirable, and I get to choose what I do with that.’ And if I want to have a laugh at these pathetic men, I will!” he says. Truthfully, the feelings Thomason gets from “Fantasy” could be expanded to his career at large.

“For me, it’s about maintaining autonomy and things on my own terms: you can say whatever you want, but I’ll do what I want to do.”